Our community is still struggling with how to communicate about HIV and how to treat those who are HIV positive. This is especially evident in the way we are accustomed to asking guys to disclose HIV status online, which has remained largely unchanged since the advent of profile-based websites over 20 years ago.

When Ugandan teenager Jackline Kemigisha was sexually abused at the age of 15 and infected with HIV, the health professional who diagnosed her disclosed her status to her family without Jackline's consent. The results were extreme.

Instead of placing responsibility on everyone having sex, Randy Shilts' 1987 book And the Band Played On portrayed people with HIV as suicide bombers. The damage, both to the truth and to the public image of people with AIDS, still reverberates today.

Like any thinking man, I take into consideration a constellation of factors before I dive into bed with anyone. Every gay man should have a personal blueprint for deciding what to do when they meet a poz guy they're attracted to. Here's mine.

With more and more serodiscordant couples (that is, couples in which one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative) dating and dealing with issues of disclosure to friends and family, you're certainly not the only one experiencing this very delicate predicament.

If you are HIV-positive, I suggest that you embrace it with all its challenges and take a chance on disclosure. The pent-up stress released by living, having a smile on your face and moving forward is worth no longer hiding -- and it can't hurt your T cell count.

I call disclosure of my HIV status "coming out with none of the benefits." However, I found that putting HIV in its proper place in my life enabled me to move forward and was incredibly empowering. But I am not saying it was, or is, easy.

There is a common assumption among the sexually active homo population that it is the responsibility of HIV-positive men to disclose their status before engaging in bedroom gymnastics. But sometimes there is more than one suspect in a crime.

Coming out as an HIV-positive man was just the bath that I needed. Immediately, I felt cleansed of the shaming and prejudice that may or may not reside behind the smiles of the friends and strangers around me.

The danger of the "third-date rule" is that it allows for feelings to develop, albeit little baby ones. Disclosing your status once a semblance of trust has formed is like placing a loaded gun in front of a person and asking them not to shoot you with it. I prefer to avoid the firing range.

If HIV-negative men were more assertive about their status, they could take on a fairer share of responsibility in regard to HIV prevention. HIV-positive men have their own status to manage. It's not their responsibility to manage yours too, but it seems that they're expected to do so.

I don't support marriage equality simply for other people. I want to walk down the aisle one day. But in the community in which I live, Palm Springs, Calif., I find that there is an immense shortage of single, available, poz-friendly, sober-friendly total tops.

We need a National HIV Coming Out Day. A day where we face the reality that America is living with HIV, that our friends and family need to be tested, that those infected can live better through treatment, and that we can get to an AIDS-free generation.

HIV disclosure laws vary from state to state, with Iowa having arguably the strictest. But let's face it: You're going to have sex again, no matter what lawmakers say. You're going to have to do an honest examination of your personal ethics as an HIV-positive individual.

People with HIV are not walking public health threats, despite how the law treats us. We are human beings and we are far more than the virus we carry. Laws based on ignorance, fear and shaming of people with HIV are the real danger to public health.